


summers are for ghost stories

by tieria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, As in Takeru still got kidnapped but there was no Lost Incident, Eldritch Abomination Flame, M/M, POV Outsider, Pre-Relationship, Takekiku Friendship, it's mostly about friendship lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-06 20:17:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16839664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: Takeru starts acting strange. Kiku starts to think that she might be a little haunted. Those two things aren't unrelated.





	summers are for ghost stories

**Author's Note:**

> For Vrains Rarepair Week Day 2- [Horror Stories]!   
> The pairing is flame/takeru but really it's just kind of about the friendship between takeru and kiku (and flame) lol

There was a… something that lived in the cave in the forest outside of town. It was ancient and shambling, a ghost of a beast whose birth preceded that of even the gods. In an age far before humans were so much as a glitter in the eyes of history the beast fought the gods, sprawling out over the earth and spreading flames dark as the starless sky over even the roiling waves from which it emerged. It was vicious and righteous, raking claws through the heavens and turning the skies to ash at its very touch. And, they said, though the beast lost the war, even the power of the gods could not kill it for all it had devoured. Instead it retreated down into the earth, biding its time and gathering its power, luring children through the forest with its song and eating them in one big- 

“Kiku!  _ Kikuuu, stop!” _ Takeru yelled, covering his ears and ducking his head into his knees. Kiku kicked her legs off the back of the porch steps and laughed, bumping her shoulder with Takeru’s. They were eight years old and inseparable in the sticky summer heat, hands still sticky with watermelon juice they hadn’t quite managed to lick off their palms. 

This was a good day, for Takeru. Not every day was like this- sometimes they were talking and Kiku noticed his replies slowly fading away, and sometimes she came down the road to knock on the door only to be turned away by Takeru’s grandmother with a soft little smile and an apologetic  _ not today, Kiku. _

But most days were good days, and Kiku did her best to make then even better. Though if that meant teasing, well. She wasn’t above it. “Okay, okay. I’ll stop. But it’s true, you know!”

_ “Kikuuu!” _

“Turn it off! Turn it off!” Takeru yelled, and Kiku groaned but obligingly flipped the channel anyway- to the next, which was  _ also _ showing foreign horror movies, and just happened to be at a part where a monster leaped out from behind some sort of prop- 

Takeru shrieked and dove behind Kiku, wedging himself between her and the couch as their snacks went flying. Kiku just groaned. So much for  _ Halloween, _ then. They were eleven years old and Kiku’s grand master plan for curing Takeru of his irrational fear was, apparently, off to a brilliant start. 

“Nope,” Takeru said, shaking his head and pushing his back up against a tree as one of their classmates tried to shove a bag of bread into his hands. “Nope! Not doing that. Definitely not throwing that bag of bread into that demon-infested cave.”

“Oh my god,” Kiku muttered under her breath, knowing full well what was about to happen. The group of them stood out in the forest just past midnight, Takeru and Kiku and a few of their soon-to-be high school classmates. 

Their classmate turned on her, shoving the bag into her waiting hands. “Then Kiku’s gotta do it!” 

Kiku rolled her eyes, then marched up to the mouth of the cave with the stale bag of bread in hand. This was dumb, she thought- like feeding some ducks. Or the cave spiders. Or the rats, or whatever little forest animals took shelter out in the cave. 

“Hello,” she said, just in the tiny, improbable event that something sentient did live in there, scurrying and roiling in its murky depths. Just because she didn’t believe in anything like that didn’t mean she wanted to be  _ rude _ if they really did exist. She was already almost intruding on their poor home for nothing more than a test of courage. 

Nothing answered back, of course. Something swirled in the darkness- or perhaps that was just the play of the faint moonlight through the trees. But Kiku didn’t shiver, and threw the stale bread into the depths of the cave with all her strength. It landed with a distinctive  _ plop,  _ and with no further reaction, Kiku shrugged and returned to the rest of the group. 

“I can’t believe you did that,” Takeru muttered into her ear, and Kiku shrugged, looping her arm through his to drag him back home. There hadn’t been anything to it, really. Just a silly test of courage. But…

Kiku went up on tiptoe and whispered into his ear- “Okay, but be careful! Because I’m about to transfer the curse to you-”

_ “Kikuuuu!” _

It was the pattern of their lives- Kiku teased, Takeru pretended he wasn’t cowering at her words, and Kiku promised it had all just been a story and the two of them went on about their lives as normal. And by normal, Kiku meant that  _ she _ continued to care very little about anything supernatural that may or may not have existed around her while Takeru  _ pretended _ he didn’t care about the possibility of a ghost or yokai or zombie or whatever Kiku had come up that day to tease him with.

Except, Kiku thought, glancing over her shoulder for the dozenth time since she’d gone into that cave a few nights prior, this time Kiku was the one who felt as if she was being haunted for no reason. Well, not no reason. She’d grown up on the legends of the old world, all the superstitions that soaked through their town and the forests and ocean and mountain range that surrounded. If she didn’t have at least a  _ little _ caution regarding them, then she’d have just as much city in her veins as Takeru did. She didn’t  _ believe _ them, but...

She’d made this walk home from school a dozen times over since the semester had started, and nothing was wrong. Absolutely nothing about it was different- by which Kiku meant each and every time she felt like something was watching her, boring holes into her back and stalking through the afternoon shadows. The heat of summer still lingered, but a chill rushed up Kiku’s spine. 

_ Don’t be dumb, Kiku, _ she told herself, and curled up the drive to Takeru’s house. She let herself in, calling up a bright  _ hello _ as she took off her shoes. Takeru called down from his room, and Kiku rifled through her bag as she ran up the stairs. Takeru had asked to borrow her tablet today, since he didn’t have a laptop of his own and the computer his grandparents kept in their bedroom might have actually been older than either of them. He greeted her with a smile, and Kiku handed over her tablet before flopping back on his bed and taking out the work he’d missed. 

She watched him struggle for a little bit, squinting down at it and poking absently, then put on her most ferocious grin and stalked forwards, lifting her hands like claws while Takeru was still distracted. “Ohhh? Takeru? Can I tell you something? Right now there’s a white hand hovering over your shoulder, but…?”

He said, still frowning down at the screen- “I know that’s from a game- hey!”

Kiku pounced on him, dropping her hand heavy on his shoulder and making him leap out of his skin, slamming his knee on the underside of the desk and tablet practically flying out of his hands. He caught it at the last second and glared back at her, waving it chidingly.

“Kiku! Come on!”

She laughed a little awkwardly, more than a little relieved she hadn’t made Takeru drop it, then gently snatched it from his hands and navigated over to the site he’d wanted to look at in the first place. “Sorry, sorry. I guess I’m still just in the mood for ghost stories. It still feels like summer vacation, after all.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Takeru said, taking back her tablet before the site loaded. Kiku frowned- Takeru never did that. Half the time, Kiku had to navigate him through the websites themselves, too. Though she was pretty sure Takeru only made her do that because he found it kind of amusing, in his own weird way.

“Are you sure you don’t-” 

Takeru turned the screen away from her. “Yeah, it’s fine. Thanks, Kiku.”

But when Kiku returned home that evening and poked through her search history, muttering a quiet apology to Takeru as she did, there was nothing left remaining. He’d cleared it. Kiku flipped over in her bed and clutched the tablet close to her chest. Takeru had never done that before. Not even when he’d ordered her a surprise present and then accidentally sent the email receipt to her own address. 

That was… odd. 

Odd, Kiku thought, but maybe it was good. Maybe, just maybe. 

Kiku stumbled into her bathroom the next morning still half-asleep and oddly anxious as she glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was a mess, and she’d looked better without the big bags beneath her eyes, but-

There was a red hand on her shoulder. Kiku shrieked and stumbled back from the mirror, back slamming against the towel rack on the door, the chill of it making her leap forwards again with a clatter as her flailing elbows knocked over her hairbrush and a dozen other things spread out about the counter. She landed a disheveled pile on the floor, a tube of mascara bouncing off her head just to add insult to injury. She whipped her head around, looking for any sign of a ghost, knowing that she wouldn’t find anything but not really capable of trusting the rational thought. There was, of course, nothing there.

It had just been the bath curtain. Just the towel hanging over the curtain, Kiku told herself. Her mother must have left it there this morning, always forgetting her things. As if on cue, her parents called up for her in unison, asking if she was okay.

“I’m fine!” Kiku yelled back, forcing herself to catch her breath and pick herself (and all the fallen debris) up from the floor, arranging it just as it had been before. She kept her gaze low, intentionally avoiding her reflection- but when she dared look back up, there was nothing there save the towel over the curtain. 

_ Of course, _ she told herself,  _ of course. You’re just being paranoid because you went in the cave, Kiku. There’s nothing wrong here. You’re just letting all the silly stories get to you. Who are you, anyway? Takeru? _

At that last thought, Kiku shook her head, a tiny smile pulled from her. Maybe growing up with all these small-town legends had made her a little paranoid, but at least she wasn’t near as bad as Takeru was. 

Which, speaking of Takeru… He was acting differently lately, too. Kiku couldn’t quite put her finger on it- on the surface, he was still his usual self. Skipping classes, wandering off at all hours of the day, generally flipping between wasting his days out on the pier and trying to prove that he was worth more than anything anyone had ever thought of him. But he was also acting very, very strangely. Ever since they’d started high school he’d become a little more distant, and at first Kiku had thought it was because he’d found the transition difficult. No one would have blamed him if it was just that. 

But this was something else. He’d always been able to talk to her before. If no one else, he could tell Kiku the things that he’d never burden his grandparents with because he knew that she’d never judge him for anything. Or at least, Kiku  _ thought _ he knew that. 

There had to be something more to it. 

Because, at the heart of it- the reason that she had to put on makeup over the dark circles beneath her eyes, the reason that she hadn’t slept well in the first place- she was just worried about him. They’d grown up together, shared sweets and secrets and sorrows and everything in-between. If Takeru was dealing with something that he couldn’t tell even her, then… 

“Okay,” Kiku said, nodding at her reflection in the mirror, “Let’s do this. Kamishirakawa Kiku, on the case.”

And definitely just one case. Absolutely, completely,  _ definitely _ just one.

Her first opportunity presented itself just a moment later, as Kiku stepped outside and found Takeru waiting for her- dressed properly in uniform, for once. She lifted an eyebrow at him, and Takeru shrugged back at her, which was a sure sign that something was up. He always made sure to tell Kiku the night before when he planned on going to school so she could made sure he stuck with his promise. Not that he usually needed the help keeping his word, but it made the both of them feel a little bit better about it. So for him to be walking beside her now, then...

“Takeru? Is something going on?”

He shrugged. It was terribly unconvincing. “I wanted to ask your help about something. Uh, a cooking something. Not anything complicated or anything.”

“If you wanted cooking help, then why didn’t you just… look up a recipe? Or ask your grandparents?” Kiku asked, knowing full well that Takeru was more than capable of doing that. They even traded off making lunch for each other, on the days Takeru did go to school. Kiku’s were definitely the better of the two, but it was the effort that counted. She’d never once been ungrateful for Takeru putting in the effort. 

Takeru shrugged. “You’re good at it. I figured if we went into one of the classrooms or something you could show me how.”

“Are we in elementary school?” Kiku said, laughing lightly and elbowing Takeru lightly in the side. He protested gently, but didn’t say anything else. When she snuck a glance at him, he might have been the tiniest, faintest bit red. 

Kiku snickered. The usual Takeru, too embarrassed to ask a favor. Takeru elbowed her back for that, and she ran a few paces ahead, a rush of relief crashing over her. So it had all been nothing after all.

**_And what do you claim to know?_ **

“Huh?” Kiku said, glancing back at Takeru over her shoulder. “Did you say something?”

Takeru blinked at her wide-eyed. “No?”

“...Are… are you sure?” Kiku asked slowly, turning around entirely to make sure that they were alone on the street. There were a few people out and about in their front lawns, and the small forms of some other students from their school far, far back behind them, but Kiku was sure she’d heard the voice come from right behind her.

She’d been… She’d been sure, but…

Kiku shook her head. “No, sorry! Must have been my imagination.”

Because it definitely hadn’t been anything else. Kiku spun back on her heel and marched forwards again, letting Takeru catch up to her side this time. Today would be fun- school with Takeru, then spending some time cooking with him. Maybe she could even drag a few other friends into it, and they could have a snack party afterwards. 

_ Fun, _ she thought, and chased away all the lingering unease.

The next few days were quiet- Takeru came to school more days than he skipped, and Kiku was no longer letting her paranoia get the better of her. She made it to school without any more false whispers in her ear, and even the eyes on her seemed to have vanished. She sat down at her desk with a sigh- mostly relieved, a little disappointed that Takeru wasn’t there. 

“Hey, Kiku?” asked the girl who sat beside her, her dark hair pulled into a short ponytail that draped over one of her shoulders, “Can I ask you something?”

Kiku blinked, then nodded. “Yeah, sure. What is it?”

The girl hummed, then bit her lip for a moment as she fiddled with the pencil in her hands. “So, about Takeru. Um, we met at the test of courage. Do you remember that?”

Kiku nodded, the girl continued. “Well, I was wondering. Did you hear the rumor? About the fact he got a girlfriend?”

“A girlfriend?”

Well, Kiku thought, that would certainly explain some things. If Takeru suddenly wanted cooking lessons, and was going through the trouble of actually turning up to school in uniform, rather than just in his usual street clothes and getting reprimanded when he showed up...

But this town wasn’t big. It wasn’t small, but this was the only high school about the place. If Takeru was dating someone, then surely someone would have seen and spilled the secret. Though then again, Takeru could pretend to be pretty scary when he wanted to be. To people who hadn’t seen him cry over grandfather’s ghost stories and be brought to his knees by the mere mention of a youkai following in his footsteps, anyway. 

“So it’s not you?” asked the girl, and Kiku shook her head. She and Takeru had been mistaken for a couple about a thousand times over, but neither of them had ever felt the need to try and change their relationship. They were close as family, and that was the most important thing. 

“I don’t think that’s it. If you’re talking about why Takeru has been acting differently, I mean.”

“Huh,” said the girl, “then that means I don’t get to buy you a congratulations present.”

“No, wait. Why would you..?” Kiku blinked. The entire world went red. If there was sound- if the girl beside her said anything- then it was all lost to a terrible, blood-curdling howl that echoed through her ears and tore the breath from her lungs. The cold ripped through her in the now empty room, and Kiku turned her head frantically, gaze searching for anything that resembled the world she knew in the black and red seeping out from the corners of the pulsating room- and then she blinked again, and the world returned to normal. 

“Kiku? Did you space out on me?” the girl asked, and Kiku laughed nervously, fiddling with her braid for lack of anything else reassuring to do. 

“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t get much sleep last night. What did you say?”

But Kiku couldn’t shake the bad feeling. The hand she could explain away, and the voice, and the things falling from her shelves to wake her just as she was falling asleep and the dozens of other little strange things happening around her. But that strange vision…

Kiku paced around her room in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, afraid that she’d see some terrible nightmare about demons or hungry beasts from ancient times that had been chained to the earth as some sort of punishment. It was the reason that she was awake to see something strange when she glanced out the window. 

Her home was out at the very edge of town. Takeru’s was set right next to hers, and then there was nothing but the forest and the mountains and the single road out of town towards the other towns out on the coast- the  _ real _ rural part of the prefecture. So why she’d see Takeru, heading out into the forest well past midnight on a school night when he’d called to say he’d be attending tomorrow…

Kiku threw on a thin sweater and a pair of pants, then scrambled down the stairs to throw on a pair of shoes and burst out the door, circling around the house just as Takeru disappeared into the trees. For the briefest of seconds she thought about calling out- but then a feeling like a weight clamped down on her shoulders, and she swore the wind was hissing at her a quiet  _ shhhh. _

Kiku stumbled, caught herself, then chased after Takeru silent through the woods. It felt wrong to be following him like this. She’d wanted to make sure that he was okay, and nothing more- but going out into the woods like this in the middle of the night didn’t seem like something Takeru would do under any normal circumstances. When they’d gone out for that test of courage, she’d only managed to keep him there by neglecting to mention they were going all the way out where the rumors all said there would be ghosts. 

And Takeru was walking the same route now. Not hesitantly, not with the tiniest hint of trepidation. Well, okay, maybe a  _ tiny _ hint of it. But he’d clearly gone this way dozens of times before, just like this.

_ The cave? _ Kiku thought, pressing her back against a tree and watching out of the corner of her eye as Takeru took a deep breath, then stepped inside. With the overhang and the low light, it wasn’t long before he was lost to the shadows entirely. 

“Takeru,” she breathed, clutching a hand tight to her chest, heart panged with worry. There was no way that Takeru had forgotten the legend, not with the way Kiku had loved to tease him as children. And teenagers, for that matter. If he was going in there now, against all that fear- Kiku didn’t even want to think about what kind of trouble he must have been in. 

And, slowly, Kiku followed him to the very edge. He’d gone in, and Kiku peered after him into the murky darkness, searching for any sign of life. She clutched her hands into useless fists, wishing that she’d brought a baseball bat- or at least a nice heavy stick, fallen from one of the old trees surrounding. 

“Takeru?” she called quietly, “Are you okay?”

The moment she lifted her voice the world around her began to shake. Kiku stumbled backwards, thinking it to be her imagination again, something playing tricks on her mind- but around her birds flew from the trees calling warnings and her vision went blurry. The earth was shaking- up and down, like the rolling waves of an earthquake- and the old wood around her was creaking as she lost her balance and fell back onto the shaking earth. She ducked her head under an arm, hoping that would protect her from the falling leaves but knowing it would fail her if any of the trees came crashing down-

“Wait wait wait wait!!” Takeru shouted, bolting out of the cave and throwing out his arms before the fallen Kiku. “That’s just Kiku! That’s Kiku! She’s fine! She’s fine!”

“Takeru?” she breathed, certain that her voice would be swallowed up by the shaking earth. But just as Takeru stepped out the shaking ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Takeru glanced over his shoulder at her, then nodded. 

“You are sure?” From inside the cave came a booming tone, and Kiku skittered back at the sight of red gleaming somewhere within, shadows like tentacles curling out of the cave entrance. 

Takeru nodded vehemently. The overwhelming aura slowly began to recede. 

“What’s going on?” Kiku asked, picking herself up from the ground now that she no longer seemed to be in danger of losing her balance- and very much wanting to look Takeru in the eyes, for this conversation. “Takeru, is that..?”

“Yeah,” Takeru said, not quite meeting her gaze, “That’s Flame. He’s uh, he’s a thing?”

“Takeru, it’s quite rude to call me a  _ thing-” _

“But he’s actually really nice! I promise! I promise!” Takeru yelled, leaping in front of Kiku and waving his hands wild in the air, as if that would somehow manage to distract her from the booming voice coming from the depths of the cave. As if that would somehow manage to distract her from the fact that the  _ creature of darkness and nightmares that battled the gods _ was somehow real. And living in a cave in the woods behind their homes. Maybe Kiku had just died, that night during the test of courage. Maybe that had been an actual earthquake, and Kiku had fallen into the cave and never managed to get out and died of dehydration and this was the first trial the dead had to face. 

“As Takeru has said. My name is Flame, which means-”

“No one needs to know what it means!” Takeru yelled, more exasperated than anything. Kiku took the few seconds to pinch her arm and confirm that she was, in fact, still alive, then shook her head. 

Okay, so ghosts were real, apparently. Or at least ancient beasts from the beginning of time. Okay. She could work with that. “So, Takeru. No wait, Flame? How did Takeru react to meeting you?”

“Kiku no-”

“Oh, he was quite scared. The first time I appeared to him he-”

“Aaaaand that’s enough of that!” Takeru yelled, though it was already too late. Half a lifetime’s worth of experience with Takeru gave Kiku more than enough idea of what Takeru had done the first time the ghost of some dead beast had appeared to him. Or shadow of some alive beast. She’d have to get the full story, some time. But first...

“Oh, did he scream?”

_ “Kiku-” _

“Rather loudly! And then he attempted to throw me out his window, which, in the manners of my kind, is quite rude.”

“Oh, I think it’s rude in any culture to try and throw someone out a window,” Kiku said, trying and failing quite valiantly not to burst out into peals of laughter. As it was, the only thing escaping past Takeru’s hand clamped over her mouth were subtle little giggle-snorts that probably did nothing for Takeru’s remaining pride. 

Takeru just groaned, and only then did Kiku notice what was in his other hand- the cloth from one of their lunch boxes, tied around his wrist. Probably to keep it from getting dirty on the cave floor, if Kiku had to guess. Which meant...

“You bring him food!” Kiku exclaimed, clapping her hands together in delight. It turned out that Takeru had been making those meals for someone after all. Though she wasn’t sure that any of the rumors had exactly anticipated  _ this. _

“Yeah, uh, turns out he didn’t really like the stale bread stuff.” 

Takeru shrugged, and the low voice rang out of the cave again, quite cutely displeased- “No. Not at all. As far as offerings go, that was quite the shoddy one.”

Kiku laughed, and thought that no one should ever tell Flame that they hadn’t actually meant it as an offering. Though she’d find it kind of hilarious to watch Takeru deal with the fallout, she could already tell.

“But wait. If he’s really a beast, then how..?”

“Ah,” said Flame, remaining tentacles retreating back into the cave as the energy around it began to swirl dizzyingly, “about that. Takeru, would you mind?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Takeru said, and rushed back up to the mouth of the cave. He didn’t have even a shred of hesitation, and Kiku wondered if this meant that this was finally the end of Takeru’s silly little fear. If it was, she thought, that was a little sad. She’d kind of imagined that she’d be able to tease him about it forever. 

On his shoulder something small began to form- humanoid, no bigger than a small crow. It flickered to life like a candle, bright red and deep black like she’d always imagined from the stories. 

“You’re the ghost!” Kiku said, pointing at the small creature that had flickered to life, perched on Takeru’s shoulder. Takeru started and leaped, twisting in midair to look over his shoulder as if some  _ other _ strange horror had appeared beside him. “You’re the thing that was haunting me!”

“Apologies,” said Flame, tilting his head downwards slightly, eyes narrowed as if he meant to close them but didn’t quite want to miss her reaction. “It seems you’re a bit sensitive to creatures of my kind. But your ability is quite commendable, in this day and age! Perhaps I’ll have to spend a bit more time with you, rather than Takeru.”

“Hey,” Takeru said, and flicked one of Flame’s legs gently. Flame crossed his arms and huffed. 

Kiku watched them both and thought, satisfied,  _ mysteries solved. _

And so the days came to pass with Flame working his way into their daily lives, sitting on Takeru’s shoulder and hovering about, commenting on this peculiarity of humans or this strength. Takeru would feed Flame pieces of his lunch and smuggle away snacks from the kitchen and generally spend a little more time talking to what appeared to be thin air than the average person was probably supposed to- but Kiku thought it was quite cute, and never minded pretending to answer comments that clearly hadn’t been aimed at her to keep their cover. 

“I was bound to the first person to pass me an offering,” Flame confided to her once, softly, and Kiku nodded for a moment, thinking that her little joke had turned out to be more significant than she’d once thought. But it was a good thing, she’d long since decided. No matter what kind of origin Flame had or what he’d done in the past, he was good for Takeru now. The first time Flame had called him strong, Kiku swore that she’d never seen him quite that happy. 

She smiled, then skipped ahead down the sidewalk as her pleasant memories got the better of her- then paused. Takeru stopped a few paces behind as Kiku’s thoughts raced in the other direction. The hint of a chill ran through her, and she swore that her breath came out in a puff of white despite the clinging summer. 

“Wait,” Kiku said, running quick through each of the strange occurrences that had happened to her over the past few weeks, “If you’re bound to Takeru, then why did I see you in my bathroom that one morning…?”

Flame tilted his head, looking up at Kiku from his perch on the bag hooked around Takeru’s wrist. “Your bathroom? Are you accusing me of something unseemly?”

“What?” Kiku said, blinking at him, “No, that’s not it at all. There was this red… hand…”

Flame’s expression went slack. He stared her down a very long moment, and the tension between them could have shattered with a tap.

“Um,” Kiku said, much more shrill than she would have liked, “Um, nothing! Absolutely nothing! Forget I mentioned it! There’s nothing wrong!”

“Kiku? Hey, Kiku,” Takeru said, jogging a few steps to keep pace with her and grabbing at her shoulder, clutching on tight for support, “You’re joking, right? Tell me you’re joking. Tell me-”

“It’s very likely only  _ minorly _ malevolent,” Flame chimed in unhelpfully- and Kiku and Takeru bolted down the street, ignoring Flame’s gentle instances that  _ it maintains a set distance from you at all times, so therefore running will have no effect- _

(And if Kiku’s search history happened to be full of Takeru-esque  _ what to do in the event of a haunting how to drive away minorly malevolent spirits how to perform an exorcism- _ well. Kiku herself would be erasing those.)


End file.
